Love of books, Kindle vs hardbacks, home ownership, hell, sex, generational divides, and epistemology
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Episode 124: Mark is the Best Book in the Bible
Dr. Thomas Whitley and Rev. Sam Harrelson talk about phone problems and promises, growing up, and the finale of the First Thinking Religion Bible Bracket Challenge Extravaganza.
Podium Winners:
Gold: Mark
Silver: Matthew
Bronze: 1 Samuel
Sponsored By:
- Sam Harrelson Consulting: Get a free estimate for your church or nonprofit’s website redesign or social media campaign from the experts at Sam Harrelson Consulting this summer. Promo Code: Hermeneutics
Links:
- Thinking Religion Bible Bracket Challenge – Challonge
- Google is tryharding at phones right now, and I love it – The Verge
- How to Get Into and Out of iPhone Recovery Mode
- The Talk Show ✪: Ep. 201, With Special Guest Matthew Panzarino
- Apple’s iPhone X notch is an odd design choice – The Verge
- Donald Trump–Russia dossier – Wikipedia
- Gospel of Mark
Episode 123: Testing the Limits
Dr. Thomas Whitley and Rev. Sam Harrelson are joined again by David Ray Allen Jr. to cover the Final Four of the Bible Bracket Challenge. It gets bloody this week.
Special Guest: David Ray Allen Jr..
Sponsored By:
- Sam Harrelson Consulting: Get a free estimate for your church or nonprofit’s website redesign or social media campaign from the experts at Sam Harrelson Consulting this summer. Promo Code: Hermeneutics
Links:
- Thinking Religion Bible Bracket Challenge – Challonge
- Saudi Arabia to allow women to drive in major milestone for country
- Twitter on Twitter: “Can’t fit your Tweet into 140 characters? 🤔 We’re trying something new with a small group, and increasing the character limit to 280! Excit… https://t.co/y1rJlHsVB5”
- MRBlog | The Price of Patriotism – The Marginalia Review of Books
- The Brick Testament
- Gospel Parallels: A Comparison of the Synoptic Gospels, New Revised Standard Version: Jr. Burton H. Throckmorton: 9780840774842: Amazon.com: Books
- ANTICHRIST NUMEROLOGY IN GANGNAM STYLE – YouTube
Episode 122: Last Night on Earth
Dr. Thomas Whitley and Rev. Sam Harrelson compare their phones' home screens, discuss the relevance of Facebook to political campaigns, and continue the very contentious Bible Bracket Challenge Elite 8 Round to decide the Final Four. It's on.
Links:
- Thinking Religion is creating Podcasts | Patreon
- Thinking Religion Bible Bracket Challenge – Challonge
- Facebook agrees to release Russian-purchased ads, pledges deeper look at 2016 election – POLITICO
- Arcade Fire singer on ‘fake news’ prank: I understand why Trump won now | TheHill
- Arcade Fire’s Win Butler on ‘Everything Now’ Album Rollout — The media is built for clicks now, and we were trying to see firsthand how it all works. I feel like I now understand on a much deeper level why Trump got elected. Negativity is what travels. So we learned more about how the internet functions, and how it’s an insane feedback loop. It’s like, we just played a show in London that was one of the best shows we’ve ever played there. It was honestly so fucking exciting. And at the show we sold a T-shirt where we put an ironic Everything Now logo on top of Kylie Jenner’s face. It was visually punk as hell. We knew doing that would get a lot of press pickup but every single news outlet in the world covered it. Somehow there’s a story in that, but there’s not really a story in Band Is Really Amazing at Music and Plays a Live Show and People Cry Because It’s So Beautiful. So it was really interesting to us to see what got picked up about Arcade Fire. That idea plays into what we were doing as well: We were providing the ammunition for people who wanted to write negative things about the band: Here you go! Here’s something to be outraged about!
- The Super-Aggregators and the Russians – Stratechery by Ben Thompson
- Google Play Music
- Crisis and Catharsis: The Power of the Apocalypse: Adela Yarbro Collins: 9780664245214: Amazon.com: Books
- Should A Christian Get a Tattoo? Is It Wrong To Put Ink On My Body?
- September 23, 2017: You Need To See This (Date Setting A Sign, NOT The Rapture) – YouTube
Episode 121: That’s What Mordecai Said
Dr. Thomas Whitley and Rev. Sam Harrelson discuss new iPhones, playing the expectations game, and how mobile devices have transformed learning and worshipping. Then, they launch into the "Sweet 16" of the Bible Brackets Challenge. Sorry, Esther.
Links:
- Thinking Religion is creating Podcasts | Patreon
- Thinking Religion Bible Bracket Challenge – Challonge
- iPhone X vs. iPhone 8: how to pick between them – The Verge
- 5 Tips for Donating After Disasters — ProPublica
- Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund
- Houston Humane Society | Pet Rescue, Animal Shelter & Pet Adoption in Houston, TX | Giving
- Animal Rescue | Animal Shelter Support | SPCA International
- Lego Eddie Izzard – Ten Commandments – YouTube
Episode 120: Stink Bug Theology
The Rev. Lauren Larkin joins Dr. Thomas Whitley and The Rev. Sam Harrelson in a discussion of how hermeneutics and worldviews affect our theologies and what sort of spaces we try to build.
Special Guest: Lauren R.E. Larkin.
Links:
Episode 119: The Greek is Good
Dr. Thomas Whitley and Rev. Sam Harrelson are joined by David Ray Allen to discuss football schedules and the third round of the Bible Bracket Challenge to determine which book is the "best" book in the Bible and which book is the "Michigan" book in the Bible.
Special Guest: David Ray Allen Jr..
Sponsored By:
- Sam Harrelson Consulting: Get a free estimate for your church or nonprofit’s website redesign or social media campaign from the experts at Sam Harrelson Consulting this summer. Promo Code: Hermeneutics
Links:
- Thinking Religion Bible Bracket Challenge – Challonge
- Amazon.com: Love Between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism (The Chicago Series on Sexuality, History, and Society) (9780226075921): Bernadette J. Brooten: Books
- Florida State vs. Alabama – Game Summary – September 2, 2017 – ESPN
Episode 118: Better Than Ezra
Dr. Thomas Whitley and Rev. Sam Harrelson discuss the uncomfortableness of whataboutism and its interplay with American Christianity and continue the Bible Bracket Challenge semifinals.
Sponsored By:
- Sam Harrelson Consulting: Get a free estimate for your church or nonprofit’s website redesign or social media campaign from the experts at Sam Harrelson Consulting this summer. Promo Code: Hermeneutics
Links:
Episode 117: Hey Jude
Dr. Thomas Whitley and Rev. Sam Harrelson discuss the benefit of doubting Trump's America, Evangelicals carrying water for Trump, whether Joshua is a good book to include in the Bible, and why Jude deserves some reconsideration.
Sponsored By:
- Sam Harrelson Consulting: Get a free estimate for your church or nonprofit’s website redesign or social media campaign from the experts at Sam Harrelson Consulting this summer. Promo Code: Hermeneutics
Links:
Nerd Post on Firewalls
We work on a lot of websites built on WordPress at Harrelson Agency.
Some of those are complicated builds that cost tens of thousands of dollars and require constant maintenance. Some of those are relatively static sites for a non-profit or small business built on a shoestring budget of just a few hundred dollars. What all of the sites we build have in common is a firewall (we use Wordfence a great deal but also have other means and normally work at the endpoint).
What I’ve found in all my years of marketing and business consulting is that web security is so overlooked by companies, churches, and non-profits large and small. WordPress powers a ton of websites out there, and as a result is frequently a vector of attack and hacking attempts. Make sure your web devs / “tech people” or neighborhood kid that you hire to build or work on your site knows at least a little about infosec and opsec or you’ll be paying for your budget-built website eventually.
Here’s a nerdy, but interesting, post from Wordfence on what makes them different from cloud-based firewalls…
When choosing a firewall for your WordPress website to protect it against attacks, you have a handful of choices. Wordfence is one of the only effective “endpoint” firewalls available. The alternative is a “cloud” firewall from vendors like Sucuri (now owned by GoDaddy) and Cloudflare.